My guess, recent spammers are using an open proxy server.
Do we block those ?

Let me explain it one more time.

- We are using a blacklist composed using more sources.
- Blacklists are composed by ip addresses that have been ALREADY spotted for malicious activity
- There is no will and and no decision to block a specific proxy/ip/service

So... we don't block all proxies, if a proxy has been already used for some attack - probably it is blocked.

slightly OT because not tor related:
But how many legit registration of new users are there in a week or day?
My guess is there are fewer legit new users than successful spam attempts, right?
So if manuall work is necessary anyway, why not turn it around and only activate the legit ones on daily basis instead of being forced by the spammers to react more often?

Is it fisable to restrict new accounts to only sent a pm to admins or post in a special thread and ask for activation before posting anywhere else?

This IP blocking sounds like shooting the messenger. Don't let anyone in who arrived by bus, because 8 months ago there was some drunk party arriving by bus and one of them threw up in the lobby.

Not only does it look childish, it is also against everything I always assumed anyone standing for freedom should stand for. Free software is just a tiny subset of the freedom movement. On top of that, it penalizes friendly visitors who just happen to arrive by the same route. You cannot always choose your IP, most of the time it is dynamically allocated to you by your ISP. Every public ISP has been subject to a spam attack at some point, including mine. Using the same logic as xes is advocating, I have been denied access to other services because of that. Not only do I find it infuriating, I also find it a sign of incompetence on the side of said service's sysops.

I think it's time to step back and ask, what is it exactly that we are trying to protect against? Only once we have a solid answer to that should come the next question, what is the best way to protect us against that? Instead, we have a hammer and treat everything as if it were a nail.

__________________In particle accelerators atoms are indeed not only touching each others. But banging together in a massive explosive orgasm.
-- nieldk in a TMO post

Yes! That is exactly why this tool is used!
Really: Freedom is in danger, if IPs from known spambots are listed and blocked???
Your example is just childish!
The general problem of ISPs, that do not care, will not get resolved, by unblocking their IP-ranges.

....Using the same logic as xes is advocating, I have been denied access to other services because of that. Not only do I find it infuriating, I also find it a sign of incompetence on the side of said service's sysops.

I think it's time to step back and ask, what is it exactly that we are trying to protect against? Only once we have a solid answer to that should come the next question, what is the best way to protect us against that? Instead, we have a hammer and treat everything as if it were a nail.

I'd advice everyone to cool down a bit, no need to start getting personal.
There is a real problem with spammers, and we do need to protect against that kind of attacking. Only the means are debatable.

Now what I'd like to really know is the problem creating new accounts mainly, as this is what I think. Probably we can assume that existing accounts that have posted meaningful stuff in the past will not start spewing out spam just like that?

If this indeed is the problem source, then some kind of quarantine mechanism would solve it without any kind of blocking activity; We'd just need a way to sort out potential "real maemo contributor" from a potential spamfester.

So what are the statistics now, how many new accounts currently turn out to be spammers and how many not, in say about a month or so?

Hi. Just kind of curious. Are these spammers a person or a program? If it is a program couldn't there be an additional layer the new member needs to go through to submit a post. Like for the first 10 posts you have to enter some words you are given that are in a strange font that could not be easily read by a program. Isn't this commonly done? Anyways, just asking. I hope there is a good solution as it is quite annoying at times.